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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25173832">Unfurmiliar Thoughts</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/fuzzballsheltiepants/pseuds/fuzzballsheltiepants'>fuzzballsheltiepants</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>A Mewment Like This [11]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>All For The Game - Nora Sakavic</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Asexuality, Discussions of sexuality, Law Student!Andrew, M/M, Major Autocorrect Fails, Neil's Google habit strikes again, Translator!Neil, perpetual bad flirting via text</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 06:27:27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>7,490</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25173832</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/fuzzballsheltiepants/pseuds/fuzzballsheltiepants</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>While Andrew is away at an externship, Neil takes the time to get to know Sir, and a bit more about himself.  Clubbing with his coworkers leads to a confession...and a discovery.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>A Mewment Like This [11]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1028409</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>107</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>634</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Unfurmiliar Thoughts</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/FoxsoulCourt/gifts">FoxsoulCourt</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>yeah, so, it's been forever since I've updated and I thank y'all for sticking with it!  I wanted to gift this to everyone for your patience, but that's impossible, so I hope the fic will make up for it.  </p><p>This is by far the longest yet, and it gets quite a bit deeper into Neil's personal journey (and the next one will do the same for Andrew).  M might be a bit of a high rating for this but there's a lot of discussion of sex and attraction, and I opted to err on the side of caution.  As always, thank you to @tntwme for the beta, and for @foxsoulcourt for supporting me even when I closed the doc for 4 months and pretended it didn't exist.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>Day 1. Sunday</strong>
</p><p>The key slipped into the lock too easily. Neil hesitated at the sound of the bolt snapping open, glancing furtively up and down the empty hallway. No doors were yanked open, there were no suspicious eyes watching his every move. He was supposed to be here, he reminded himself, gripping the key—that tangible proof of his invitation—so tightly in his hand it left dents. Andrew had asked him to come.</p><p>Something strange fluttered in his stomach at the thought. Strange, but increasingly familiar; increasingly hard to tamp down, too. It was just because Andrew was two hours away, he thought, squeezing the key tighter. Two hours away and so he asked an acquaintance for a favor. People do that. It didn’t mean anything.</p><p>The apartment was dark, the light Neil flicked on only illuminating a semicircle that included the kitchen and half the living room. Sir sat up at Neil’s intrusion, his head appearing over the back of the couch. <em>Oh. It’s you,</em> Sir seemed to say, giving Neil a displeased once-over. Yawning widely, he thumped off the couch to saunter into the kitchen. There he waited, with an air of long-suffering impatience, for Neil to dish out the designated can from the stack in the cupboard.</p><p>By the time he had finished scooping the litterbox, Sir was done eating and was on the couch, grooming himself deliberately with his back to Neil. “Hey, buddy,” Neil said, perching on the coffee table. “You want some attention?”</p><p>Sir glared at him, one hind leg still sticking straight up in the air, then resumed his bath. Neil sighed; he needed to leave for trivia night anyway. He filled Sir’s little plastic ball with the tablespoon of dry food Andrew’s instruction sheet allowed for and nearly tripped over him when he turned around to set it on the ground. “Wow, I didn’t hear you get down.” The gray tail twitched. “You want this?” Twitch. “Here.” Neil rolled it across the floor, a few kibbles scattering as it went. Sir watched it go, not moving until it came to a stop a few feet away. He glanced up at Neil, as if expecting him to do something about it, before walking over to vacuum up the pieces of food.</p><p>Neil shut the light off, his last view before the room went dark that of Sir’s sleek gray back.</p><hr/><p>
  <strong>Day 4. Wednesday</strong>
</p><p>“Hey, Sir,” Neil called as he let himself in. “You have a good night?”</p><p>Pale spring morning sunshine filtered through the large windows, revealing Sir already waiting by his designated feeding spot. “Sorry I’m running late, buddy,” he said, reaching down to rub Sir’s head. He got a flat look in response, no friendly chirp, no back arching into his hand. “Fine, fine, I’ll get your food.”</p><p>Once Sir’s face was buried in his plate, Neil glanced around for the little food ball, but it was nowhere to be found. He checked under the couch; nope. Not in the bathroom, either. Andrew’s bedroom door was still closed, so there was no way he’d managed to lose it in there.</p><p>He glanced at his phone; seven minutes before he absolutely had to leave or he’d miss the subway. Andrew’s text thread was on top, open to last night’s discussion of whether apple pie counted as fruit or dessert.</p><p>
  <em>Your cat hates me</em>
</p><p><strong>Andrew:</strong> <em>So?</em></p><p>Neil glared at his phone.</p><p>
  <em>He deliberately hid his stupid food ball, he’s going to make me late</em>
</p><p><strong>Andrew:</strong> <em>Look behind the desk there’s a little gap there he likes to stuff it in there</em></p><p>“Ugh.” He got down on his hands and knees and craned his head, trying to see. No sign of a plastic ball, but there was something else, something flat and kind of rigid. His hand was just barely narrow enough to reach in; pinching it between his index and middle fingers, he managed to finagle it out. It was a card. A familiar card, seeing as he had received one the night before: an invitation to Andrew’s graduation. He flipped it over; it was addressed, a little wrinkled but still salvageable. The name, in a neat blocky hand, drew his eye. He took a photo with his phone and sent it to Andrew.</p><p>
  <em>Didn’t find the ball but there’s this. Isn’t that your brother?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Do you want me to drop it in the mail?</em>
</p><p>Three dots appeared, disappeared. Neil checked the time and cursed; he needed to run. Sir would have to survive without his precious tablespoon of kibble for the day. Shoving the card in his jacket pocket, he locked the door and bolted for the subway station.</p><p>Jean greeted him with a quiet, <em>“Salut.”</em> There was still something off about him, as if he had turned inwards. Neil watched him out of the corner of his eye as he settled at his desk and realized what it was he reminded him of: a turtle. Not the big giant one he and Andrew had seen at the aquarium, but the ones he had sometimes seen when out on his runs along the Charles River, tucking all their soft parts into their shell so they couldn’t be harmed. Neil would stop and watch them with his arms wrapped around his own middle, and he felt the same urge now as Jean sank down into his seat.</p><p>Unlike the turtles, though, he couldn’t just pick him up and move him to the water’s edge. He didn’t even know what that haven would be for Jean. If it was a place or a person, or something else altogether.</p><p>His attention wouldn’t stop drifting from his translations. To Jean, to his cooling coffee, to his silent phone. There was something tickling in the back of his brain, like a mental sneeze that wouldn’t come. Sara and Jeremy were as talkative as ever at lunch, but he noticed Jeremy’s eyes kept finding Jean, his smile faltering for just a second each time.</p><p>The windows were gilded by the sun when he left work, already dressed in his gym clothes. Shrugging his backpack onto both shoulders, he set off at a run in the direction of Andrew’s apartment, cutting through the little park when he reached it. The shadows of trees were stretching long across the grass as he passed through; he could see the outlines of buds on the branch tips, leaves emerging to greet another year.</p><p>It was full dark by the time he reached Andrew’s neighborhood. He felt a pleasant burn in his muscles as he jogged up the stairs, then paused for a second to catch his breath before fumbling for the key, tucked away in his jacket that he had stuffed into his backpack. His fingers caught on something else, and he pulled it out: the card, even more wrinkled from its travels. He held onto it as he let himself in, his thumb running over the edge of it.</p><p>Sir was waiting for him, tail flicking impatiently, his plastic ball now floating in his water bowl. “I see you found it,” he said, dropping the card on the counter. He snapped a picture of the ball and sent it to Andrew before fishing it out, then reached down to pet the soft gray back on his way to the food station. Sir arched into his touch for a second, then sat down and aggressively licked a paw when he remembered he didn’t like Neil.</p><p>His phone buzzed as he set Sir’s food dish down, and he tripped over it reaching for the counter.</p><p><strong>Andrew:</strong> <em>Figures</em></p><p>
  <em>I wonder where he hid it</em>
</p><p><strong>Andrew:</strong> <em>He casts invisibility spells on his stuff</em></p><p>
  <em>Where did he learn them?</em>
</p><p><strong>Andrew:</strong> <em>He’s a cat they’re born knowing simple magic</em></p><p>Neil hummed and considered that. As much as it might make sense, heritable feline magic, he found he rather liked the image of a mama cat purring spells at her kittens, and them fumbling to purr them back.</p><p>
  <em>Are they? Or are they taught in kittenhood? Maybe there are schools</em>
</p><p><strong>Andrew:</strong> <em>Can you imagine trying to get cats to go to school</em></p><p>“Good point.” Neil said it aloud; Sir’s ear flicked back at him but he didn’t raise his head from his food bowl. There was so much that Neil wanted to say, about cats, about Jean, about spring and turtles and the strange temptation of the delusion of safety. But all his thumbs could manage was:</p><p>
  <em>How’s the externship?</em>
</p><p><strong>Andrew:</strong> <em>Boring</em></p><p>
  <em>The externship or the question?</em>
</p><p><strong>Andrew: </strong> <em>Both</em></p><p>Neil could almost hear Andrew’s fatigue through the screen. He tried to remember if he’d been this tired near the end of his Master’s, but no. His worst period had been during undergrad, when he had still been Alex McGregor, studying online in dim rooms in other people’s houses; the random days spent testifying, being passed from one agent to another, shuttling across the country; the urge to run so strong he felt like clawing off his own skin just to distract himself. Then the days he spent staring at the ceiling, waiting, waiting, for an end he was certain would never come.</p><p>The card on the counter caught his eye again. Part of him didn’t want to bring it up, not now, not when he could feel Andrew’s shoulders bowing from a hundred miles away. But he had heard it, when they had wandered through the aquarium. The longing. Muffled; suffocated under years of distance and pain, but the whispers of it had still made it to the surface.</p><p>
  <em>What do you want me to do with your brother’s invitation?</em>
</p><p>Sir was cleaning his face with unnecessary vigor when the reply came through.</p><p><strong>Andrew:</strong> <em>Burn it mail it same difference</em></p><p>
  <em>Okay.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I’ll drop it in the mail tomorrow. </em>
</p><p>He waited for an answer. All night, he waited; while eating dinner, while sitting with King on his shoulder, some TV show Nicky had raved about playing in the background just so Neil could say he’d watched it, while curling up in bed with a new German book, one part of his mind was listening for a reply that never came.</p><hr/><p>
  <strong>Day 6: Friday</strong>
</p><p>
  <em>I’ve been thinking about turtles lately</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The way they curl into their shells</em>
</p><p>
  <em>And then when you put them in the water they just swim off like everything is ok</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Do you think they miss the water?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Why do they ever leave?</em>
</p><p>Neil’s apartment was dark; he slumped on the couch without bothering to turn on the light. King jumped up next to him, butting him in the cheek with her little head, and he found himself exhaling. A little bit of the tension in his shoulders seeped out into the cushions, but he couldn’t get his leg to stop jiggling.</p><p>He’d been like this since he woke up, an echo of his mother’s voice reverberating from his dreams. At least, he thought it was his mother’s voice.</p><p>It was getting harder to remember.</p><p>Flashes came back to him, and he didn’t know if it was reality or a dream he was recalling. They had started to blend together, inventing something softer and more ethereal, something that dissolved into nothingness when he tried to reach out with memory’s hands.</p><p>He didn’t know how long he sat there in the dark, listening to King’s quiet purr and the voice of a ghost murmuring in his ear. Long enough that his phone screen lighting up made him flinch. He knew who it was without looking; only one person ever called him.</p><p>“Hey.”</p><p>“You’re waxing philosophical today,” came Andrew’s voice. “And the answer is sex.”</p><p>Neil’s laugh earned a disgruntled ear flick from King. “What exactly is that the answer to?”</p><p>“More than you’d think,” Andrew deadpanned, “but I’m referring to your question. Why turtles leave the water, it’s to mate and lay eggs.”</p><p>“Oh. That makes sense, actually.”</p><p>“Don’t sound so surprised.” Neil grinned, imagining the weary indignation in Andrew’s eyes that must accompany that flat tone. “What made you text me about turtles?”</p><p>Neil’s smile faltered, his hand pausing on King’s back. “I don’t know.”</p><p>“I don’t need to see your face to know when you’re bullshitting me.”</p><p>“I’m not.” Neil could hear the lie in his own voice, and he sighed. “I mean, I don’t mean to. It’s something about Jean lately, he was making me think about turtles. He’s all…all kind of internal, if that makes sense. Like, he’s tucked into a shell or something. And I was wondering what would count as water for him.”</p><p>Andrew hummed; Neil felt himself uncurling, sinking deeper into the couch. King yawned in his lap and resettled, sprawling out so one paw rested on his knee. “What is it for you?” Andrew asked, and Neil let his head drop back, staring at the shadowy ceiling.</p><p>“I don’t know anymore.” He waited for a response, but got none; he wasn’t sure why that was a relief. “You?”</p><p>“My car.”</p><p>“Your car is your safe place?” Neil wasn’t sure why that surprised him; maybe because Andrew rarely drove. Maybe because Andrew always seemed most at home in his kitchen, or tucked into the corner of the couch.</p><p>“You didn’t ask about my safe place, you asked about the water.” Andrew paused for a beat, then went on. “The shell is the safe place. The water is freedom.”</p><p>“And you said I was the philosophical one.”</p><p>Andrew snorted. “What’s the shell, then, if the water is safety?”</p><p>King hopped off Neil’s lap and headed into the tiny kitchen; Neil followed, flipping on the lights as he went. “You can hide in a shell,” he said, leaning against the counter. “I guess it’s a kind of safety too. But it’s such a limited life, right? Like if they’re in their shell they’re just...stagnant. They can’t even walk. In the water, they’re safe enough to be free.”</p><p>“And you don’t think the two are linked?”</p><p>“What, freedom and safety?” Neil opened up the fridge as he considered. He had felt safe plenty of times since his father’s death, but when had he felt free? The only thought that came to mind was when Hernandez had pressed a set of keys into his hand. It had reminded him of when he had first learned to ride a bike, pedaling as hard as he could down the long driveway of the Baltimore house, the wind blowing his hair back. Taking his hands off the handlebars, and marveling at how the bike just kept on going. Equal parts terror and exhilaration.</p><p>And then he remembered something else. Standing in a high-ceilinged room, colorful canvases arrayed across the walls. Crouching down, nose to nose with a seal bigger than he was, only glass between them. “I think...I think I like doing things.”</p><p>He could practically hear Andrew’s raised eyebrow over the phone. “That’s very elucidating.”</p><p>“You know what I mean, though. I told you. My mom and I, we kind of moved all over but I never got to just... do stuff. Like for fun, or because it was educational or whatever, and that—that feels like water.”</p><p>Andrew was quiet for a moment, and when he spoke there was something in his voice, something that cut through the fatigue that seemed to have become the norm. “It does.”</p><hr/><p>
  <strong>Day 8: Sunday</strong>
</p><p>Sir greeted Neil as he unlocked the door, rubbing against his calves before marching into the kitchen, tail aloft. He accepted a brief chin scritch, making the squinty face Neil associated with happiness; he felt a smile tug at his lips as he reached for a can. “Don’t hate me so much when I’m the one feeding you every day, huh.”</p><p>He sat on the floor while Sir ate, trying to decide what to do with the empty day that stretched in front of him. A run, a few errands; that would occupy the rest of the morning, but after that… He tried to remember what he would have done a few weeks ago, in the Before Andrew period, but it felt distant and hollow and strange, somehow.</p><p>His phone buzzed, and he pulled it out.</p><p><strong>Andrew:</strong> <em>Have u read Harry Potter</em></p><p>Neil raised an eyebrow at his phone.</p><p>
  <em>Yes</em>
</p><p><strong>Andrew:</strong> <em>I dont know why that astonishes me</em></p><p>
  <em>You can’t type out ‘you’ but you write astonishes</em>
</p><p><strong>Andrew: </strong> <em>Theres no shorthand for astonishes</em></p><p>
  <em>When did u read HP</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I don’t know, I was a kid</em>
</p><p>
  <em>11 or 12 maybe?</em>
</p><p>It had been when he was on the run with his mother. He still remembered when she grabbed a paperback copy of the first book in some generic airport bookshop and shoved it into his arms. It had kept him quiet for the whole flight, and it became a new normal, a way for her to shut him up as they hopped from country to country. Nicky had tried to make him watch the movies but it hadn’t held the same kind of draw for him.</p><p><strong>Andrew:</strong> <em>So u know how McGonagall turns her desk into a pig the first day of school</em></p><p>He didn’t remember that, but it seemed plausible.</p><p>
  <em>Sure</em>
</p><p><strong>Andrew:</strong> <em>What did the pig think</em></p><p>
  <em>What?</em>
</p><p><strong>Andrew: </strong> <em>For the 2 secs it was a pig. Did it have consciousness? Was it like fuck Im a pig in a room full of students? Was it aware it had been a desk? When she turned it back did the desk go, damnit now Im a desk again</em></p><p>
  <em>What is the threshold of awareness of transformed animals in the HP universe</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Does this qualify as animal abuse</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I need to know </em>
</p><p>Neil looked up at where Sir was now washing his face. “Your dad is a very strange person.” Sir briefly paused in his cleaning to give Neil a look, and he so obviously had Thoughts and Opinions, and now Neil had to wonder—</p><p>What did the pig think?</p><p>
  <em>What the actual duck Andrew</em>
</p><p>He didn’t wait for a response before calling. “Seriously, what the fuck?”</p><p>“Do they have ducks in the Harry Potter universe?” Andrew asked. He sounded different, rumpled and softer, and there was a strange little flutter in Neil’s chest.</p><p>“I mean they have pigs so why not?”</p><p>Andrew hummed. “I wonder if there’s some sort of prejudice against muggle animals.”</p><p>“Didn’t they all turn into normal animals though? Like the one turned into a cat, and that guy turned into a dog, and that other guy turned into a rat.”</p><p>There came a pained sigh through the phone. “I am not awake enough for this.”</p><p>“You’re the one who texted me.” Neil couldn’t keep the smile from his voice. Sir seemed to come to an abrupt decision and marched onto his legs, flopping down with all the gravitas of a foreign dignitary.</p><p>“I’m not awake enough for your pathetic lack of Harry Potter knowledge,” Andrew clarified.</p><p>“Allow me to apologize,” Neil said, adopting a mock RP accent. “Obviously I should devote more time to children’s books.”</p><p>There was a small thud, then a scratching sound, as if Andrew had dropped the phone and was fumbling to pick it up. “You do a British accent,” Andrew said.</p><p>“Yeah, I pick up accents pretty easily.” It almost slipped out, then; about running, about blending in and surviving, about changing identities so often by the time his mother was dead he had forgotten who he was, all the way down to his core. About scrabbling for a foothold, years and years clawing his way up to some sort of plateau he didn’t really understand. About looking around him and the view being just as bleak as the valley he had dragged himself out of.</p><p>It almost slipped out, but it couldn’t. Not if he wanted to stay.</p><p>“Useful talent, in your line of work,” Andrew was saying, and Neil shook himself back into the present, to the floor of Andrew’s kitchen and his legs rapidly going numb under Sir’s weight.</p><p>“It is,” he said, after too long a pause. Somehow he made it off the phone; he couldn’t explain why his breath was coming short, why his nails were digging into his palm, why there was a roaring in his ears. He needed to move, but he couldn’t, his legs were frozen—</p><p>A furry head bopped him in the chin, startling him into sucking in a full breath, then another. Sir stared him in the face unblinking, a low rumble emanating from his chest. Neil ran a shaking hand down his back.</p><p>“Guess you don’t hate me anymore.”</p><p>He didn’t know how long he sat there in the aftershocks of panic, not registering the cabinet at his back, the cheap tile under his ass, the cat on his lap. His heart kept beating; his lungs kept expanding; he kept living, all without any input from him.</p><p><em>I’m no different than the desk pig.</em> The thought was sudden, and with it came awareness. His feet were tingling from Sir’s weight on his legs; the cabinet handle was digging into his shoulder; there was a suspicious moisture on his cheeks. He dashed that away, then gave Sir’s head a gentle pet, earning a sleepy, “Mrrp?”</p><p>“I have to get going,” he said. Sir blinked once, then curled up into a tighter ball on his lap. “I can’t feel my legs.”</p><p>Somehow the cat managed to make himself heavier; Neil surrendered to his fate and picked up his phone. He opened up Andrew’s texts and stared at the words on the screen.</p><p>It was stupid, really, the strange little pain that twisted in his chest as he thought about a fictional pig in a fictional world full of fictional magic. But—he knew that feeling. That feeling of being yanked against his will into a half-real life, with no way to process the change. Of course, unlike the desk pig he hadn’t undergone the reverse transition; he had stayed a pig in a roomful of children, and he still wasn’t sure which existence was truth.</p><hr/><p>“Is this seat taken?”</p><p>Neil glanced up at the man looming over the empty chair. The coffee shop was full to overflowing; he shook his head, and the man grinned and dropped down into it. “Thanks, man.”</p><p>Neil shrugged and turned back to his phone. He scrolled for a while, picking at his sandwich, coffee long gone cold. But there were no answers to be found, and he just dove deeper and deeper into the Google rabbit hole.</p><p>“Hey, man, are you okay?”</p><p>“Hmm?” Neil blinked and looked at the man, who was staring back at him with concern all over his kind face.</p><p>“You okay? You look kind of upset.”</p><p>“Oh. Uh, yeah. I’m fine.”</p><p>“Okay.” The man subsided, playing with his own phone for a couple of minutes, before— “You sure? Because if you want to talk about it, sometimes it helps telling a total stranger in a coffee shop.”</p><p>“No, really, it’s fine.” He took another bite of his sandwich and gulped some of his cold coffee. “It’s just that my friend pointed something out today that I can’t stop thinking about and it’s completely ruined my life.”</p><p>“What was that?”</p><p>“You know Harry Potter?”</p><p>“Ah,” the man said, nodding. “You found out the author’s a TERF.”</p><p>“What? No.” Neil looked at his screen, then back at the man. “Wait, what? She is?”</p><p>The man nodded again, and Neil slammed his phone down on the table with a curse. “Sorry, man. I didn’t mean to add to your stress. What, uh, what was the actual problem?”</p><p>Neil shook his head. “Now it’s just stupid.”</p><p>The man folded his hands in front of him and waited expectantly, and Neil huffed. “Okay, so, you know how they transform furniture and stuff into animals and vice versa?” He nodded. “Do the animals, like, know?”</p><p>The man opened his mouth to answer, stopped, tried again, stopped again, drumming his fingers against the table for a moment while he thought. “The fuck? That’s just mean!”</p><p>“Right?”</p><p>“Does your friend hate you? Why would they say that?”</p><p>Neil laughed. “It’s very possible he does, actually. Anyway it’s been bothering me all day.”</p><p>“Well, thank you for sharing the horror. That’s going with me to the grave.”</p><p>“You asked.”</p><p>“True.” He drained his cup and set it back on the table, studying Neil for a second. “I’m Matt, by the way.”</p><p>“Neil,” he answered, after a moment. He wasn’t sure why they were sharing names but perhaps joint Harry Potter-related-trauma merited that.</p><p>“Want to get dinner sometime, Neil?” Matt asked. He was smiling, and he looked nice, and even though he was smiling and he looked nice Neil stared at him for a second, feeling like one of those owl gifs that Sara was always sending him.</p><p>“Dinner, like, talk about all the horrible things in Harry Potter while consuming needed calories, or dinner like, you want to get in my pants?” Neil asked. He was pretty certain that was on Jeremy’s list of Things You Should Not Say but he wasn’t sure how else to figure out the situation.</p><p>Matt laughed and blushed and again, he looked nice and Neil was pretty sure he was supposed to be feeling something other than awkward. “I mean, either. Friends is good too if you’re not into guys.”</p><p>“I’m not really into anybody,” Neil said, and then wondered if he was lying.</p><p>“Oh. Ace, huh? That’s cool. But yeah, you seem like a fun guy and I’m good with just eating dinner and trashing The Author Who Shall Not Be Named if you want.”</p><p>“I’m definitely not fun,” Neil said. “But I can do that sometime as long as you don’t mind it won’t go anywhere.”</p><p>Matt tugged a pen out of his backpack and jotted a number down on a napkin. “There. You can text me if you want, or you can throw that out after I leave and I will never know, it’s all good.”</p><p>And then Matt was disappearing through the sliding door and turning up the sidewalk in the opposite direction of Neil’s apartment. Neil smoothed the napkin out, studying the numbers written out in a strong, careless hand.</p><p>Gulping down the dregs of his coffee, Neil tucked his phone in his pocket and stood. <em>Ace,</em> Matt had said. As if that made sense, as if it was an identifier, a label. Something Neil was, or could be.</p><p>He folded up the napkin and shoved it next to his phone.</p><hr/><p>
  <em>What is ace?</em>
</p><p>Neil paused before hitting enter. Google was not always his friend these days—he still couldn’t quite scrub the things he had found when he’d searched for “ultimate twink fantasy” from his mind. For a brief second he considered texting Andrew, or maybe Jean, but then he would have to explain and they would make assumptions and—</p><p>He punched the Search button with unnecessary vigor. King paused in her nightly grooming process to watch him, eyes wide as she searched for any signs of danger. But it appeared the two of them were both safe for the moment, as the search loaded without any images.</p><p>A link to a guide to the asexuality spectrum came up; below it were several public health sites talking about adverse childhood experiences. He snorted; he certainly was well-versed in that sort of ACE but he was pretty sure that was not what Matt had meant.</p><p>He clicked on the asexuality one. Then the next one. Then the next. Neil read them all, barely blinking as he scanned screen after screen. It felt—remote. Like reading the articles about his father that had once filled the newspapers, all factually correct and yet missing every piece of the truth.</p><p>And then he clicked another, and this one felt like a punch to the gut. Stories. People talking about how they always felt broken, or wrong. How they were treated like they were just young and naive. How the attraction everyone else talked about, everyone else seemed to feel, sounded like a myth or a religion, something believed in more than something concrete and real. How it felt like being outside on a cold winter street, looking through a window at a party everyone else seemed invited to from birth. How they were told they would understand it eventually, if only. If only.</p><p>Neil slumped back in the couch, rubbing a hand over his face, trying to get rid of the spots in his vision. He had been piecing together the puzzle of Neil Josten for years, sorting out which bits were him and which were Nathaniel, the core of his self versus the chunks that had been carved away and reformed under his father’s knives and his mother’s fists. And this…A section that he hadn’t realized was missing had just filled in.</p><p>It wasn’t a big section, not an edge to provide stability; just a chunk of the middle that brought a bit of color to the rest of the picture.</p><p>He wondered if this had been what it felt like when Andrew realized he was gay, or if he had always known. Neil wasn’t sure what the protocol was for asking someone about coming out. Andrew didn’t seem shy about it now, but Neil suspected that was a hard-won battle.</p><p>His phone buzzed, startling him out of his reverie.</p><p><strong>Jeremy</strong>: <em>are you coming to trivia?</em></p><p>Fuck. Neil slammed his laptop shut and checked the time; he would just make it if he ran.</p><p>
  <em>On my way</em>
</p><hr/><p>
  <strong>Day 11: Wednesday</strong>
</p><p>Neil unlocked Andrew’s door just in time to hear a crash sounding from the depths of the apartment. He nearly tripped over his own feet as he closed the door behind him, but managed to stay silent as he toed off his shoes and tiptoed through the apartment.</p><p>Silence.</p><p>A throw pillow from the couch was on the floor, but otherwise the living room and kitchen appeared untouched. Neil slipped one of Andrew’s knives out of the block, and crept towards the bathroom. Clean and untouched.</p><p>The bedroom door was open.</p><p>It was never open. Andrew had left it closed, and Neil hadn’t touched it.</p><p>Switching his grip on the knife, Neil swore silently in every language he knew, then flung himself through the door, ready for whatever he found, but there was nothing other than a picture frame shattered on the floor and a Sir-sized indent in the comforter on the bed. He touched the indent; still warm. Carefully avoiding the glass, he checked under the bed, checked the closet, nothing.</p><p>Including no cat.</p><p>“Sir?” he called. “<em>Pspspspspspspspsps?</em> C’mon Sir, you’re fine. I won’t even tell your dad about the picture.”</p><p>No gray and white beast appeared.</p><p>“You better not have gotten yourself killed on my watch.” He was trying for humor, but his mouth was dry. “Come on, don’t do this to me. I promise I will give you the good treats if you just—”</p><p>Sir materialized in the doorway, wearing the aura of nonchalance cats always seemed to adopt after doing something utterly embarrassing. “Okay, well, fuck you,” Neil said, dutifully going to the kitchen for the owed treats.</p><p>He looked Sir over as he ate, ignoring the sidelong glares he received for being so rude as to dare to touch an occupied cat. There were no injuries he could find, no glass embedded in little toe beans, nothing.</p><p>There were claw marks in the bottom of the bedroom door, which he supposed answered the question of who opened it. Poking around until he found a dustpan, he went back into the bedroom to clean up the remains of the picture frame. He swept up the bits that had scattered when it broke, then picked up the frame and flipped it over.</p><p>It was Andrew, with a young woman he didn’t recognize. His hair was damp, and they were both dressed in workout clothes, some sort of technical-looking fabric that clung to every muscle. Her arm was draped across his shoulders, a warm smile on her face as she looked at the camera. Andrew had his usual non-expression, but something in his eyes looked...settled. A friend, then.</p><p>Careful not to tear it, he freed the photo from the remains of the frame. He couldn’t take his eyes off of it, and he didn’t really know why. It was just strange, he supposed, to see proof of Andrew’s life outside of where his orbit intersected with Neil’s. Strange how little we really know about other people, how much bigger each individual solar system is than the section we can see from our own little sun.</p><p>He pressed his knuckles to the unfamiliar ache in his sternum. It didn’t make sense. Nothing ever had, when it came to Andrew. But he wanted his own picture to sit here, next to that of this unknown woman, wanted to be one of the last things Andrew saw before he went to sleep.</p><p>Shaking his head at his own ridiculousness, he threw out the twisted frame and headed back to his apartment.</p><hr/><p>
  <strong>Day 13: Friday</strong>
</p><p>“We haven’t had a person’s night out in like, forever,” Sara said, dropping her lunch onto the table and flopping into her chair dramatically.</p><p>Jeremy hummed. “Yeah, when was the last one?”</p><p>“Before Sam, or whatever his name is.”</p><p>“Sam?” Jeremy looked thoughtful.</p><p>“She means Mike,” Jean said.</p><p>“Sam sounds nothing like Mike. But anyway, yeah, he’s history. I’m a free agent again.”</p><p>Neil hazarded a glance at Jean. He looked as stoic and calm as he always did, but there was something behind his eyes, something that suddenly shuttered: a turtle pulling into its shell. <em>Oh.</em></p><p>“What about you, Neil?” Sara asked, twirling her fork in her pasta only to have it all slide right off again. “You free? Or are you still tormenting coffee cat guy?”</p><p>“I’m always tormenting everyone,” Neil said. “And I’m game. Jean?”</p><p>Jean gave a half-shrug, half-nod to signal his reluctant acquiescence. Sara whooped and waved her arms around like she was at some kind of rave. “Person’s night out! Person’s night out!”</p><p>“Isn’t every night out a person’s night out?” Neil asked, as he always did, only to get his hair violently rumpled by both Sara and Jeremy, as he always did.</p><p>They ended up going to some underground club that was, according to Sara and Jeremy, the height of cool. Which meant it was loud and hot and packed with bodies in a variety of clothing that looked varying degrees of uncomfortable. The others all got their drinks while Neil scouted around for a free table. A group was just starting to get out of their chairs, so he shot over to claim it, narrowly beating out someone with a spike through their eyebrow. Eyebrow Spike glowered at him for a while; Neil stared back, unimpressed. Eventually Eyebrow Spike turned and clomped away and Neil felt a tiny thrill of victory.</p><p>The evening passed in a slow-motion blur: Sara and Jeremy alternating between drinking and dancing, with each other and anyone else who caught their eye; Jean getting steadily more and more talkative as his blood alcohol level went up; and Neil, watching, listening. He smiled into his soda as Jeremy and Sara bounced into each other like visually impaired kangaroos and Jean slurred French into his English while he waxed poetic about some Japanese cartoon Neil had never seen.</p><p>It all felt vaguely surreal. Like entire centuries could pass on the outside, civilizations could fall and new ones could rise, and they would forever be inside this club, listening to music with a heavy beat that never really changed.</p><p>Sara flopped into her chair some indeterminate time later. “Fuck. Me.”</p><p>“What’s wrong?” Neil asked, as she tossed back the remnants of some drink Neil was pretty sure had been Jeremy’s.</p><p>“I just saw my upstairs neighbor, and like, I knew she was hot but she has no right to be <em>this</em> hot.”</p><p>“Where?” Jean asked, and Sara twisted in her seat, squinting as she peered into the crowd. “Over by the doors, dancing with the butch with the purple hair.”</p><p>Neil spotted her as Jean made an appreciative noise. She certainly was pleasant enough to look at; she seemed to move with a fluidity that many of the other dancers were missing, and there was something much more intimidating about her than whatever Eyebrow Spike was managing to achieve. He watched for a few moments, then leaned over. “What makes her hot?”</p><p>Sara gave him a questioning look, and he waved an arm to encompass the hundreds of other people. “Why is she hotter than other people? What’s the criteria?”</p><p>“Criteria?” Sara laughed. “It’s not, like, a scientific study. She just...is, you know?”</p><p>Neil gave a helpless shrug. “No?”</p><p>“Okay okay, umm…” She scanned the crowd. “That dude, over by the bar, skinny jeans, purple shirt.”</p><p>Neil found the man in question. “What about him?”</p><p>“He’s hot, right?”</p><p>“I don’t…” Neil huffed and tapped his fingers on the sticky table. “I don’t even know what that means, though.”</p><p>“Do you want to go to bed with him?” Jean asked. “Or her,” he said, jerking his head towards Sara’s neighbor, “though I don’t think you’re her type.”</p><p>Sara snorted. “Nope, not her.” She scanned the crowd. “Her,” she said, pointing to a generic girl in a tight sparkly tank top.</p><p>“How can you look at someone, some total stranger, and just be like, I want to fuck them, how does that work?”</p><p>Jeremy came just as Sara and Jean were exchanging looks Neil didn’t want to try to decipher. “What are we talking about?” he asked, picking up the glass Sara had just emptied and staring at it in disappointment.</p><p>“Trying to figure out Neil’s type.”</p><p>Neil chewed on the inside of his cheek and thought about his current search history. He debated telling them, just to shut them up, but there was a part of him, small but increasing, that was kind of enjoying the fact that they would all fail.</p><p>“Ooh, I’ll play.” Jeremy pulled his chair next to Neil’s. “Who are the rejects so far?”</p><p>He nodded as Jean pointed them out, hummed thoughtfully for a bit, then turned to Neil. “Have you ever wanted to sleep with someone?”</p><p>Neil felt his face heat. “Not really, no.”</p><p>“What about kiss someone? Or just like, cuddle, or something?”</p><p>That...that was different. There had been people, here and there, who he’d wanted to kiss. Even a couple he’d actually managed to, though it had never done enough for him to justify his mother’s hysterical reaction when she found out. The girl in Montreal who played the guitar. The boy in France who took Neil out on his boat, showed him what sea air felt like in his hair.</p><p>He couldn’t remember their names.</p><p>And then—</p><p>A late night. Music fading outside his window, cups of tea cooling on the table. Hazel eyes fixed on his mouth.</p><p>He shook himself. “Yeah, I guess. Sometimes.”</p><p>“Okay.” Jeremy nodded. “So, forget about sleeping with someone, maybe that’s not your thing. Is there anyone you’d like to have a good makeout session with?”</p><p>“Not really,” he said, shrugging, but it tasted like a lie on his tongue. <em>Nobody here,</em> he amended in his head. “How do you guys decide who you want to be with?”</p><p>Sara made a considering noise. “I think it’s eyes for me? Like, they have to have nice eyes.”</p><p>“Shoulders,” Jeremy said with a grin. “I want to feel like they can pick me up.”</p><p>“Oh, that’s hot.” Sara reached out for a fist bump, and Jeremy complied. The pair of them kept calling out body parts, like it was some sort of Build-A-Lover Workshop; it was such a strange thought, narrowing a whole person down to their bits and pieces, and Neil was pretty sure they could talk all night and he would never understand.</p><p>Jean had gone quiet, and when Neil glanced over he had that same sad-turtle look and Neil wanted to pick him up bodily and drop him in the river but he was too big. Finally Jeremy shrugged with an easy smile. “But really it’s just a vibe for me. Like, there can be people that are objectively attractive, but if they’re a raging asshole it’s a solid no.”</p><p>Sara hummed. “True. I mean, unless it’s just a one-night thing, then who cares, you know?”</p><p>Jeremy laughed and grabbed her hand, tugging her off her chair, and the pair of them went back out to the dance floor. Neil and Jean sat for a while in silence with their empty glasses in front of them, watching the crowd of dancers ebb and flow in a tide of humanity. “What about you?” Neil finally asked. “What’s your type?”</p><p>Jean didn’t look at him; for a long time, Neil thought he wouldn’t answer. And then, quietly, in French: “People who do not care about me.”</p><hr/><p>The conversation followed him home. He found himself studying people on the subway, trying to figure out what constituted nice arms or lips or shoulders. He thought about Matt of the kind eyes, whose number sat untouched in his phone; and then he let himself think about Andrew. About the glimmer of golden humor in his eyes, the pleasant timbre of his voice, the solidness of him.</p><p>It was after eleven by the time he curled up on the couch with King, but he wasn’t anywhere close to sleepy. He scrolled through his messages with Andrew, smiling to himself again at some of the more inane observations.</p><p>
  <em>Hey</em>
</p><p><strong>Andrew:</strong> <em>why are you awake</em></p><p>
  <em>Went out with friends. They got me wondering</em>
</p><p><strong>Andrew:</strong> <em> that sounds ominous</em></p><p>
  <em>How do you decide who you want to duck</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Duck</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Duck</em>
</p><p><strong>Andrew:</strong> <em>Goose?</em></p><p>
  <em>Oh for duck’s sake</em>
</p><p>
  <em>F u c k</em>
</p><p><strong>Andrew:</strong> <em>Ability to manage autocorrect is not a requirement</em></p><p>Neil huffed at his phone. He could feel his heart beating in his chest as he stared at the last line.</p><p>
  <em>That’s not an answer</em>
</p><p><strong> Andrew:</strong> <em>why are you asking me</em></p><p>Neil called him before he could talk himself out of it. “I don’t know,” he said when Andrew picked up. There was noise in the background, a thumping sound that Neil registered as a bass line after a second, the melody harder to hear. “It’s just, nothing that they said made sense.”</p><p>“So you’re collecting data.”</p><p>“I guess.”</p><p>The music in the background abruptly got quieter; Neil heard a snick, and an inhale. “Why does it matter what anybody else does?”</p><p>Neil rubbed a hand over his face; fatigue washed over him like a wave, leaving him feeling wrung out and lost. “I just want to understand it,” he said.</p><p>There was a brief pause. “They need to be able to follow my requirements,” Andrew said. “If they can’t, or won’t, I don’t care what they look like.”</p><p>“I don’t know what that means.”</p><p>“I don’t like to be touched,” Andrew said, so flatly Neil wished he could see his face to know what he was thinking. “That’s number one, no touching without permission. Don’t call me, and don’t catch feelings.”</p><p>“But I call you all the time.”</p><p>A small noise that might have been a laugh. “Last I checked, we weren’t fucking.”</p><p>“Right.” They were quiet for a while. Neil could picture Andrew finishing his cigarette, leaning back against the wall of whatever club he was at, smoke wreathing his head. “Would it be so bad? If someone caught feelings for you?”</p><p>“I told you before, I have people I know, and people I fuck, Neil.”</p><p>“But—”</p><p>“I have my reasons for keeping that distinction.”</p><p>Neil sagged back into the couch, his free hand burying itself into King’s fur. “I know.”</p><p>He took a deep breath. “It’s just, Jeremy asked me if there was anyone I would want to kiss, and I said no because there wasn’t, not there. But then, I was coming home and I was thinking about you, and—you’re different, for me.”</p><p>A quiet sigh came through the phone, the scuff of boot on pavement. Neil wanted to say something; he wanted to hang up; he wanted to fling his phone through the window, get in his car, and drive and drive and drive. And then, in a voice tinged with wry amusement, Andrew said, “You’ve always been the exception to every rule.”</p><p>The music got louder in the background, then quieted again; someone said something in the background. “I’m home in two days,” Andrew said.</p><p>A tiny smile tugged at the corner of Neil’s lips. “You are. Good night, Andrew.”</p><p>“Night.”</p><p>Neil was about to hang up when he heard it: a male voice saying, “Who was that?”</p><p>And Andrew, sounding bored and closed and so not like himself, answering, “Cat sitter,” before the line went dead.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I hope this was worth the wait!  I live for comments, and I'm dying to know what y'all thought about the ending, and where you think it's going to go from here.  Neil's mulling on asexuality mirrors my own and that of a personal friend of mine, and discussions we have had, so while his perspective and thoughts will by no means be universal it does have basis in real human experience.  HMU <a href="https://fuzzballsheltiepants.tumblr.com/">on Tumblr </a> to yell if you like!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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